Algorithmic Design using Revit Dynamo

The Dynamo Plugin (for Revit) pushes the boundaries of creative design possibilities using Revit further by providing a Visual Programming Environment in Revit. Architects who love Rhino's Grasshopper plugin will find the relatively new Dynamo Plugin for Revit extremely exciting.

We recently used Revit Dynamo (http://www.dynamobim.com) to generate an Algorithmic Pattern based ceramic frit design for a client at Intec (http://www.intecinfra.com). The design consisted of a group of triangles containing a petal shape. These triangles are stacked and the petal would shrink as they go higher. This would make the glass appear more opaque at the bottom and less opaque as we go higher.

Dynamo provided a visual programming environment to define this logic and generate the pattern in Revit. Dynamo also allows traditional code (in IronPython language) based programs to be written in code block. See Screenshots below:

Revit and Dynamo user interfaces running side by side.

Generating this pattern using Revit's internal tools would be very tedious. Many of the complex shapes that are difficult to generate in Revit can be done using Dynamo.